Ray Boulger's Mortgage Blog

Ray Boulger is widely renowned as the guru of the mortgage industry and expert on the housing market. Ray is constantly called upon by the media to provide informed comment on all areas of the market, and is a regular on the BBC, Sky and ITV.

Last year, Ray was voted guru of the year at the Headlinemoney awards by all of the nation’s money and property journalists. As such, we thought it was high time that you had direct access to him. Ray’s blog will be updated most days so the knowledge just keeps on coming.

12/03/2018 by Ray Boulger

As The Chancellor has stated that from now on The Autumn Statement will include the main annual budget announcements, it is unlikely The Spring Statement will provide much in the way of tax changes or policy statements.

21/12/2017 by Ray Boulger

Despite a partial recovery from the 859,000 housing transactions recorded in 2009, current transaction levels remain a long way adrift of the 1.6m plus seen in 2006 and 2007 and have been broadly flat since 2014. 2018 starts with prices fairly flat and housing market activity muted. There is nothing on the horizon to suggest those trends will change in 2018...

29/08/2017 by Ray Boulger

Last week the July housing and mortgage statistics were announced by HMRC (looking at housing transactions), UK Finance (looking at gross mortgage lending) and Equifax Touchstone (looking at intermediated mortgage sales) and something doesn't add up...

01/08/2017 by Ray Boulger

A good example of how different headlines can be accurate but nevertheless convey a hugely conflicting, and possibly misleading, message was apparent after publication of yesterday’s June mortgage approval figures from the Bank of...

13/07/2017 by Ray Boulger

The Bank of England today published the results of its Q2 Quarterly Credit Conditions Survey, which was conducted between 22 May and 9 June. Commenting on the supply of secured credit the report states:

28/04/2017 by Ray Boulger

Nationwide Building Society’s press announcement, issued with their April House Price Index states that: “House prices show second consecutive monthly decline in April.” Much of the media comment that followed reflected this news, including the BBC’s who have run with the headline that: “House prices fell again in April, Nationwide says.” Of course by sourcing the Nationwide the journalist is factually correct - but as consumers, it’s important that we all look beyond the headline at the facts.

30/03/2017 by Ray Boulger

Nearly all the headlines, both in the consumer and trade press, in relation to the February mortgage approval numbers announced yesterday by the Bank of England, included the word fall, dip or down, with many going as far as to...

05/02/2017 by Ray Boulger

Gavin Barwell toured the TV studios this morning, appearing on ITV, Sky and the BBC, prior to publication of the delayed Housing White Paper on Tuesday. It appears from his comments the White Paper will focus strongly on rental...

The blog postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of John Charcol. All comments are made in good faith, and neither Charcol Limited nor Ray Boulger will accept liability for them.

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